Under the constitution of Iraq,
the first meeting of the Assembly should have taken place by March
12, 2006, one month after certification of the election. The
Assembly should have elected the Speaker in its first session, the
President no more than fifteen days later, the Prime Minister no
more than fifteen days after the President, and the Cabinet no more
than thirty days after the Prime Minister.

If any of these deadlines were not met a new election should have
been held. However, similar deadlines have been missed before in
Iraq — for example with the drafting of the constitution of Iraq — without the legal
consequence occurring.

First Assembly meeting

Negotiations over the new government only started in earnest once
the results of the election were in.

Acting President Talabani attempted to convene a meeting of the
Assembly for March 12, but this required
the assent of acting Vice-President Adel Abdul Mahdi, who initially refused to
consent.

The seven parties within the United Iraqi Alliance wrote to
Talabani asking him to delay the first session until there was
agreement on who should occupy top government positions. They were
reticent to approve the Assembly speaker - expected to be a Sunni -
or the President - expected to be a Kurd - before they had agreed
to their nominee as Prime Minister.

However, on March 8, Abdul Mahdi backtracked
and agreed to sign the decree, on the basis that it would be a
"pro-forma" session that would not discuss the Prime Minister and
after advice from the Federal
Court of Iraq that the Assembly could be convened via an
alternative process if he refused to sign.

Talabani agreed to delay the first meeting until March 19 after the Dawa and Sadr Blocs within the
United Iraqi Alliance threatened to boycott the session, which
might block quorum. At a meeting with the US
Ambassador, the leaders of all the Iraqi parties agreed to bring
forward the date to March 16, to prevent
the meeting clashing with the Shiite festival
of Arba'een.

In. the event the meeting lasted only thirty minutes and dealt with
the swearing-in of the new Assembly members. It was technically
left open rather than being adjourned so that the constitutional
can require to elect the Speaker at the first session could be
complied with. The Assembly's eldest member, Adnan Pachachi chaired the session as acting
speaker following Arab political tradition.

On April 12 Pachachi announced that he
would convene the Assembly again for April
17 in an attempt to break the impasse over the new government.
However, on April 16 he agreed to postpone
the meeting for "a few days" as the Alliance had objected
to the nomination of Tariq
al-Hashimi to the post of speaker, calling him "hardline
and sectarian".

The 29 members of Sadrist Movement
within the United Iraqi
Alliance withdrew from the government in November 2006, taking
the total down to 211. In August 2007, the main Sunni bloc, Iraqi
Accord Front withdrew from the Government. The government currently
controls 167 seats out of 275 in the National Assembly.

On 2 January the main Sunni list, the
Iraqi Accord Front held meetings
with Kurdish representatives in Irbil. They reportedly said they
would abandon claims that the elections had been rigged once an
international election monitors' review was completed, and agreed
an outline of a new national unity government. After meeting with
Talabani on 8 January, Adnan al-Dulaimi said that significant
headway had been made of forming a coalition government and that
"Talabani and I have an identical point of view regarding the
formation of a national unity government based on consensus".
However al-Dulaimi was attacked by the Iraqi National Dialogue Front
headed by Saleh al-Mutlaq who said
they had broken an agreement with his and Allawi's lists to not
discuss the new government with the Kurds until the electoral
results had been reviewed.

Iraqi National List

The Sadrist Movement party within
the United Iraqi Alliance
originally opposed including Allawi's list in the new government,
saying "Allawi is a red line... Allawi represents the Baathists.
He's against us. He's arrested our people."

However, on January 22 the Kurdish
leaders called for a government of national unity to include all
four largest lists.

On March 12 US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said that Iraqi political
leaders had agreed that "there is no redline, in terms of the
inclusion of any faction, in the formation of the
government".

Islamic Virtue Party

The
Islamic Virtue Party, a member
of the United Iraqi Alliance
coalition with 15 Assembly members announced May 12, 2006 that it
was withdrawing from the government, complaining that the United States was interfering with the formation of the
government. It has been pressing for one of its members to
be named the new Oil Minister.

Iraqi National Dialogue Front

Following
a suicide bombing in Karbala, Sadrist
demonstrators in Baghdad chanted "We're going to crush Saleh
al-Mutlaq with our slippers", accusing him of backing the Karbala
bombers.Abdul Aziz
Al-Hakim, the leader of SCIRI, said the
Sunni parties' alleged support for terrorism would "only increase
our willingness to exclude" them.

On May 12, 2006, the Iraqi
National Dialogue Front said it had decided not to join the
government, saying it is too "sectarian". It walked out of the
Assembly meeting that agreed the government protesting that "it
was formed on the basis of an ethnic and religious proportional
system"but said he would "support everything positive that
comes from al-Maliki's government"

The party was not included in the cabinet approved on 20 May, but ten days later an Iraqi newspaper,
Al-Sabah al-Jadid reported that
Maliki was considering a reshuffle to bring the party into the
government.

Sadrist withdrawal

In November 2006 the Sadrist Movement withdrew from the government
in protest of the meeting between US President George W.Bush
and al-Maliki. This reduced the government's majority to 211 out of
275 seats. The Sadrist were later reported to have started an
opposition group with Iraqi National Dialogue Front
to campaign for the withdrawal of foreign troops and against
federalism.

In January they agreed to rejoin the government, after an all-party
committee was agreed to look at a timetable for the withdrawal of
US forces.

However, in April they withdrew again, demanding a timetable for
withdrawal.

Iraqi Accord Front withdrawal

On the 1st of August, the Iraqi Accord Front which consists of 44
members of the Parliament, withdrew from the Government. Al-Hashemi
will remain vice-president.

Iraqi National List withdrawal

Shortly after the IAF withdrew from government, the secularist
Iraqi National List announced that their five ministers were
suspending their participation in cabinet meetings citing the
failure of al-Maliki to respond to the List's demands. Initially,
they said they would continue their ministerial work, but three
weeks later they withdrew completely. The communist science
minister, however, decided to continue in the government.

Moderates Front

In August 2007, a new alliance was formed, calling themselves the
"Moderates Front". This consisted of the four remaining core
parties of the al-Maliki government:

The Alliance was unable to agree on a candidate by consensus, so
decided to put it to a vote. al-Jabiri and Shahristani withdrew
their candidacies before the vote. Although they were both thought
to favour Adbul Mehdi, they both decided not to publicly back
either remaining candidate.

The Iraqi
newspaper, Al-Sharq al-Awsat, claimed that Iran had exerted
pressure on the Alliance to choose Jafaari, and the Sadr Movement
threatened violence if Abdul Mahdi was chosen. However, the
Iranian conservative newspaper, Baztab, was said to be supporting
Abdul-Mahdi who has closer ties to Iran than Jafaari.

Objections

Prior to the vote Kurdish leader Jalal
Talabani said he "wouldn't object" if Alliance nominated
Jafaari.

However, on March 1, 2006, leaders of the Kurdistan Alliance, mainly-Sunni Iraqi Accord Front and secularist
Iraqi National List agreed to
ask the Alliance to drop Jafaari and chose another candidate for
Prime Minister. This came after deadly sectarian reprisals
against Sunnis after the bombing of the Al-Askari Mosque, and after a visit by Jafaari to Turkey on February
28, 2006 that was strongly criticised by Talabani.

A Kurdish leader was quoted saying "he (Jaafari) is not appropriate
and they (Sunnis and Kurds) cannot form a cabinet with him as he is
not neutral". A Sunni leader was quoted saying "his performance has
been below expectations...he was unable to control the security
situation... and what has happened in the last few days is a proof
of what we have said...the government had been inefficient and Mr
Jafaari should give his seat to someone "competent". The Kurdistan Islamic Union said it
would back the stance of the Kurdistani Alliance, to avoid conflict
with the main Kurdish political forces.

Second Alliance nomination

At first, Jafaari refused to back down and the stalemate persisted
for over six weeks. In April the most senior Shi'ite cleric,
Ali al-Sistani intervened, calling
for urgent steps to resolve the deadlock in the interests of
national unity. On April 8 the Alliance met
and reportedly considered Abdul Mehdi, Shahristani and Dawa party
members Nouri al-Maliki and Ali al-Adeeb as alternative nominees. However,
the meeting ended without agreement, instead mandating a 3-man
committee consisting of al-Maliki, Shahristani and Humam Hamoudi, from SCIRI, to discuss the
matter with the Kurdistani Alliance and Islamic Accord Front. The
Kurdistani Alliance and Iraqi Accord Front both reiterated their
rejection of Jafaari two days later, and the Islamic Virtue Party spokesman Sabah al-Saadi publicly suggested that they
nominate an alternative to Jaafari, further weakening him.

On April 11 the Al-Hayat newspaper reported that the Sadr Movement, who up to then had been the
strongest supporters of Jaafari outside his own Dawa Party, had
softened their stance. It indicated they may support one of:

On April 14 it was reported that Mohammed Redha al-Sistani,
negotiating on behalf of his father Grand AyatollahAli al-Sistani, had brokered an agreement
with al-Sadr and Abdul Mehdi. Under this agreement, al-Sadr agreed
not to object to dropping Jafaari, and in exchange Abdul Mehdi
would not seek the Prime Ministership himself, settling for his
existing post of Vice President.

President

Jalal Talabani, current President of
Iraq, said prior to the election that he would not seek re-election
as President, because it has few powers compared to the Prime
Minister. "I'm not ready to be a puppet president of this country",
he said. "The president must be partner with the prime minister in
ruling Iraq on all levels, foreign affairs, internal everything".
However, this has been seen as an indication that he wanted the
post to have more powers, rather than him not wanting the
post.

On May 28 the Assembly went into closed
session to debate the internal rules of the Assembly. The United
Iraqi Alliance and Kurdistani Alliance wanted the Speaker to have
to consult his deputies before making any decisions, a rule
fiercely opposed by the Iraqi Accord Front.

In June 2007 the Council of Representatives asked Mashhadani to
resign after a Shiite Turkoman lawmaker, Firyad Mohammed Omar, was
dragged into an unused office and detained by the speaker's
security guards. Attiyah was appointed acting speaker and the Iraqi
Accord Front was asked to nominate a replacement within a
week.

Ministers

On May 20, 2006 the Iraqi
National Assembly approved the following cabinet proposed by
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki The
Cabinet included three temporary ministers of Defense, Interior and National Security
who were replaced after agreement was reached on who would fill
these places.

Appointment process

Because of the weakness of the Prime Minister, individual ministers
are expected to have significant independence in the running of
their own departments. Particular importance was given to the
Interior, Defense and Oil Ministries, and negotiations over the
allocation of Ministries were lengthy.

The
United
States intervened on February 1
in the negotiations, calling for the Interior and Defense
Ministries to be allocated to candidates who are "not regarded as
sectarian". The US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad threatened to withdraw
military aid if this was not done. The United Kingdom Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw also echoed this in talks
with Talabani on February 20, 2006, saying these departments should
be in the hands of "technocrats".Prime Minister-designate
Ibrahim al-Jaafari reacted
angrily, saying "Iraqis would not accept interference in their
affairs".

Security Ministers

Negotiations continued between the coalition parties over the posts
of Defense, Interior and National Security Minister. It was agreed
that the Defense post should go to a Sunni Arab and the Interior to
a Shi'ite Arab. It was also agreed that the three would be
appointed for a six-month trial period. On May
28 the former Iraqi generals Baraa Najib al-Ruba'i and Nasser al-Ameri were tipped by the Turkish Press for Defense and Interior. Maliki
was reported to favour al-Ruba’i for Minister of Defense and
General Tawfiq al-Yasiri for
Interior Minister. Other candidates discussed in the local press
were:

Only 198 out of 275 Assembly members were present and many were
unaware of the nominees until they were announced. The Ministers
required an absolute majority - 138 - to be confirmed, and received
182, 142 and 160 respectively with the IAF opposing Obeidi and
Waili. The IAF had originally proposed Obeidi.

Iraqi Accord Front resignations

On 2006-07-01, Tayseer Najah
al-Mashhadani, a female Assembly member from the Iraqi Accord Front was kidnapped in
Baghdad. The Accord Front accused Shiite militias of being behind
the kidnapping and started a boycott of the National Assembly in
protest. On July 8, they said they were
considering also withdrawing their four ministers if Mashhadani was
not released. She was released unharmed in September.

On 2007-08-01, the Front withdrew from the government, and its six
representatives resigned. They had demanded the disbanding of
Shi'ite militias, pardoning detainees who had not been charged and
stopping raids.

National Security Council

On January 22 the Kurdish leaders agreed,
as part of the Salahuddin Principles, to support the
creation of a National Security Council, which would involve the
minority parties in the running of the government, and particularly
oversee the operation of the Interior and Defense Ministries.

On March 19 the parties agreed to form this
council, and agreed it would consist of nineteen members, headed by
President Talabani, and split as follows:

United Iraqi Alliance: 9

Kurdistani Alliance: 4

Iraqi Accordance Front / Iraqi Dialogue Front: 4

Iraqi National List: 2

However on April 4AyatollahHadi
al-Modarresi met with the most senior Shi'ite cleric, Ali al-Sistani, to complain that the creation
of this council was an attempt to steal the election from the
Alliance and constrain the Prime Minister. He called instead for a
national referendum to resolve any disputes.

No-confidence moves

In December 2006, media reported a plot to oust Maliki in a
no-confidence vote and to create a new governmental alliance
between SCIRI, UIA independents, the Kurdistani Alliance and Iraqi Islamic Party. Adil Abdul Mahdi had been proposed as the
new Prime Minister, but SCIRI MP Hameed Maalah
was quoted saying the groups hadn't yet agreed on a new leader. A
Maliki aide confirmed the plot but said they intended to sabotage
it. A no-confidence vote would require a simple majority but a new
Prime Minister would require a two-thirds majority.

Agenda

The following matters were expected to be the most important issues
for the new government to deal with:

Implementing and possibly amending the constitution, particularly with regards
federalism.*

Federalism and the Constitution

One of the main areas faced by the new government was the issue of
federalism, which includes the formation of one or more Shi'ite
regions, the status of Kirkuk and any possible amendment to the
Constitution of Iraq

The Iraqi Accord Front, which
includes the Iraqi Islamic Party
would like the constitution to be amended to prevent the creation
of a powerful oil-rich and Shiite-dominated region in the South of
Iraq. However Shi'ites have resisted any moved to change the
"essence" of the constitution.

Federalism

Article 114 of the constitution of Iraq provided that no new
region may be created before the Iraqi National Assembly has passed
a law which provides the procedures for forming the region. This
law was passed on 11 October after an agreement was reached with
the Iraqi Accord Front to form
the constitutional review committee and to defer implementation of
the law for 18 months. Legislators from the Iraqi Accord Front, Sadrist Movement and Islamic Virtue Party all opposed the
bill.

Kirkuk

Meanwhile
the Kurdistan Alliance wants Kurds who were expelled from Kirkuk to
be allowed to return to the city and for the Kurdish
Autonomous Region to be expanded.This currently
includes the governorates of As-Sulaymāniyyah, Arbīl and Dahūk, and the Kurds would like this expanded to include
Kirkuk and parts or
all of Diyala and Ninawa.However, this move is opposed by Turkmen and Arabs in
Kirkuk and by neighbouring Turkey. The
Iraqi newspaper, 'Al-Furat, reported 2006-03-05 that this is also
opposed by Jaafari, and one of the reasons why the Kurds opposed
his nomination. The al-Maliki government announced in its programme
that the referendum to
determine Kirkuk's status would be held on 15 November
2007.

The Kurds would also like to increase the proportion of oil
revenues retained by the regions from 17% to 24%.

In August 2006 Maliki appointed a committee to "examine the status"
of Kirkuk "in light of Iraq's federalist system", headed by the
Sunni Arab Justice Minister Hashim
al-Shibli. The committee also including the Shi'ite Independent
Interior Minister Jawad Bulani, the
Turkoman Youth Minister Jasim
Mohammed Jaafar and four representatives from Kirkuk.

Issues faced by the government

Basra violence

As soon as the government was formed members of the Basrah-based Islamic
Virtue Party started a "go-slow", annoyed that they had lost
their control over the oil ministry. A state of emergency was
imposed on June 2 and the Iraqi Army
stationed at key positions. A provincial security council was
appointed by Prime Minister Maliki,
consisting of:

Key legislation passed

The Federalism Law (October 2006), which provided for the
formation of new Regions of
Iraq

The Unified Retirement Law (October 2007), restored pensions to
former Baathists

The Accountability and Justice Law (January 2008), also known
as the de-Baathification reforms, reinstated jobs and pensions to
low-ranking Baath Party members, made
the de-Baathification Commission permanent and extended
de-Baathification to the judiciary . The law was passed by a
majority vote by the Presidency Council after Vice President
Tariq al-Hashimi refused to
sign.

The General Amnesty Law (February 2008) allowed for the
pardoning and release of all prisoners detained for more than 6
months without charge or 12 months without trial, unless suspected
of the most serious crimes.

The Provincial Powers Act (February 2008) was passed by a
majority of only 1 and detailed the division of powers between
Governorates of Iraq and the
federal government. The law gave the Prime Minister the power to
dismiss governors. However, the Presidency Council vetoed this law,
saying it violated the constitutions provisions on the powers of
the governorates. It also provided for a Provincial Elections Law,
to be passed within 90 days and new elections to be held
by October 2008.